by Cathy Ace
Annie had to agree that sharing Christine’s company for a few boozy evenings at various wine bars in the City of London ranged over a year or so hardly constituted a deep and meaningful friendship, so she let Carol off lightly.
‘No worries, Car, phone me when you’ve got a mo’ and we’ll sort it for another time. Got to go now; lots of lights blinking on me board, and Mr Currie just got in. Soaked. They’ve all got a big meeting here in half an hour and I’ve got to do the teas; you know what these City broker types are like, their brains don’t kick in till they’ve had a couple of cuppas! Give Chrissie my love, alright doll?’
‘Yep, see you soon. I’ll e-mail.’ Carol was gone, as was any thought of a spare moment for Annie for the next eight hours. By four o’clock she was just about getting her bearings, and she managed to check her personal e-mails for the first time that day; she waded through the rubbish and opened a message from Carol.
‘Hiya,’ it read, ‘got 2 B qwik. Christine’s in bits. With her mum right now. Funeral’s on Friday @ 2 in City can u come? Up rd from yr office. PLEASE? Cxxx’
Annie dashed off a reply saying she’d be there, wherever ‘there’ was, and got back to clearing out the dishwasher before packing things away for the night. It was a busy time in the City of London; October and November were always crammed with fancy dinners for this, and presentations for that. Annie understood that, for Messrs. Currie, Fox and Knight – her bosses – it was especially so this year; she knew CFK was making a significant push to show itself off as an attractive proposition for acquisition, all three partners having agreed they wanted to finally retire and enjoy the fruits of their many years of labor. Annie had been with them for over thirty years and was just about as loyal as an employee could be; this relationship meant it wasn’t difficult for her to get time off to be able to attend the funeral, especially when she dropped into her request the fact that Christine Wilson-Smythe – her grieving friend – was the daughter of the Viscount Ballinclare, a man well-known in the City.
When she arrived at the church where the service was being held for Christine’s grandfather, Annie slipped into a pew next to Carol. Christine was seated with her family in the front row, and Annie smiled and blew a kiss as she caught her eye. Fumbling with her order of service she observed to Carol, in a loud whisper, ‘Not many here, eh?’ She counted no more than twenty people scattered about in the gloom.
‘Not a lot,’ agreed Carol as they cast their eyes around the somber scene.
The coffin sat in front of the altar; it looked tiny within the cavernous space of the rather austere Wren edifice. The candles flickering beside it did nothing to brighten the surroundings, and the dampness of the rainy afternoon outside seemed to permeate the very air within the church, mixing with the stale smells of dust, old hymn books, and brass polish. Annie felt her own mortality tap her on the shoulder as she wondered about the man who had died; the setting only served to confirm her dislike of churches and she shivered . . . then jumped as a shrill voice sliced through the silence.
‘I will not be told where to park – I’m going up the front!’
Every head in the church turned to see who had shouted so rudely, and loudly. Annie was startled to see a small army of elderly men, all uniformed in green serge, glinting with brass buttons, and sporting jauntily-angled black tricorn hats. A shriveled man in a wheelchair was at the head of the group, creating the havoc that had shocked the mourners.
‘Tiny would have wanted me at the front. Our beddings were next to each other for donkey’s years. Push me faster. Don’t be such a ninnie!’
Annie could hear a sharp intake of breath from Christine’s mother, then her sobbing resumed. Christine held her mother close and started nodding wildly at Annie and Carol, which Annie took to mean she should do something about the noisy and cantankerous old man in the wheelchair. Being a natural organizer she leapt to her feet and rushed toward the annoying little person.
‘This is a funeral service, you know? Could you please be quiet?’ Annie used her ‘don’t mess with me’ voice, just to be sure he understood she was instructing, not requesting.
‘What did you say? What?’ squealed the little man as he cupped his hand to his ear.
Annie deepened and strengthened her voice as she bent toward the man’s face. ‘This is a funeral service – please keep your voice down!’
Polite coughs rippled through the congregation and people looked relieved as they saw that, thankfully, someone else was dealing with the unpleasant situation.
‘Yes, miss, I know it’s a funeral – it’s Tiny’s funeral – and we’re all here for him. He’s been at Battersea Barracks with us for a very long time, and we’ve all come to say goodbye. Haven’t we chaps?’
As Annie looked up she saw the small band of Battersea Barrackers, as they were known to the world, had been nothing more than a vanguard; at least sixty or seventy more of their number were pushing into the church out of the rain. She spied a couple of double-decker buses at the kerb outside, and realized they must have brought the old soldiers from their barracks to the City.
Carol approached and pulled at her sleeve. ‘Christine says it’s alright; they all lived in the barracks with her granddad, and this chap is to come to the front. Her mother says it’s okay.’
Annie stepped out of the aisle and backed into a pew to allow the little man to be shunted forward. He continued to shout instructions to the smartly uniformed colleague who pushed him, parked him, and even passed him a handkerchief when he started to cry, loudly, during the first hymn.
By the end of the service, and all the speeches, Annie had pretty much worked out who was who, and what was what.
Christine’s granddad, ‘Tiny’ Wilson, had been a corporal in the army and had become a Battersea Barracker when his wife had died about thirty years earlier. He’d celebrated his hundredth birthday the previous January, and had now passed away unexpectedly – if you could call it that for a man who’d lived a whole century. The loud man in the wheelchair was ‘Lofty’ Teddington; he’d not only served in the same regiment as Tiny during the Second World War, but also in the same Company as him for most of the time. They’d been privates together, had moved up to lance corporals at the same time, and had both finished their service as corporals.
It was the annoyingly shrill Lofty who’d encouraged Corporal Edward Albert Wilson – to give ‘Tiny’ Wilson his proper name – to join him at Battersea after he’d been widowed. So Tiny had moved himself over from Ireland, where he and Christine’s late-grandmother had lived, and had taken up residence at the Battersea Barracks. The parade of elderly men who’d stood to speak during the service – all fondly – of their late companion, had told how Tiny Wilson had enjoyed reliving old times with other servicemen, and how he’d thrived at Battersea by involving himself in the many groups that partook of activities and hobbies.
Annie further learned that Lofty and Tiny had ‘beddings’ – as the Barrackers’ little private rooms were called – next to each other on what were called the Wide Wards, and sat next to each other for every meal in the mess hall. She found it hard to imagine how boring that might become as the decades passed, but, apparently, it had suited both men admirably. She also heard how the pair had enjoyed a comradely competitiveness on the bowling green, and at the billiard table, while they happily exchanged stories and memories of military engagements and training camps, variety acts, and girls they’d met at the seaside.
It was Lofty himself – speaking from the nave of the church, as he was unable to make it to pulpit – who explained why he, no more than five feet five in his youth and now shrunken to a smidge under five feet, and Tiny, at fully six feet tall, had been given their respective nicknames.
As a few more insights about how Tiny’s daughter had made him so proud when she married a viscount were shared by the eulogizing priest, Annie could see Lofty’s small frame shuddering with emotion in his wheelchair. She felt his loneliness. She
shared his grief. She wept for Lofty. Carol passed her a paper tissue.
‘What are you so upset about?’ Carol sounded puzzled.
‘Lofty; poor old bloke. He in’t got long himself, and he knows it. It must get really hard to go to funerals for people when you know you might pop your own clogs any day.’
‘I’ve been thinking more about Christine and her mum,’ replied Carol, throwing Annie a slightly accusing look.
After the service Christine slipped away from her mother, who was being comforted by her husband the viscount, and the priest. She grabbed Annie and Carol and hissed, ‘There are drinks at the pub on the corner now. You two are coming, right?’ She looked desperate.
Carol nodded but Annie shook her head. ‘Chrissie darlin’, I’m sorry, but I’ve got to get back to the office.’ Annie’s Cockney accent seemed to be at its broadest when she whispered.
Christine’s finely cultured tones almost boomed in the now-empty church. ‘Oh come on, Annie, there’ll be free drinks and sandwiches and such like, you’ll enjoy it; can’t you just tell them at the office that I need you?’
Annie felt annoyed; Christine came from a titled family and worked as an underwriter at Lloyds more to prove a point than because she needed a job. Annie, on the other hand, had dragged herself out of the East End of London, where her parents had migrated from St Lucia so any children they bore would stand a chance of a better life. By becoming indispensable to her employers over decades she’d secured herself a pretty good income, but she knew she couldn’t risk their wrath; she had to be as reliable as they expected her to be.
Annie watched Carol nibble her thumbnail as her eyes darted between Annie and Christine. Poor Carol, thought Annie; she was so lovely, in her quaint Welsh way. Raised on a farm, Annie reckoned Carol would never completely lose her rural innocence, no matter how far up the ranks she rose as a computer systems manager for a massive reinsurance company. Always the peacekeeper, she avoided conflict at almost all costs; Annie, on the other hand, rather enjoyed a bit of conflict . . . as long as she finally got the upper hand.
‘I’ll just pop back and see if they can do without me for a bit longer,’ said Annie eventually. Carol sighed with relief. ‘I’ll get back as quick as I can.’
‘Thanks awfully, Annie. You’re a brick,’ called Christine as she dragged Carol out of the church.
Annie tried to live up to this solid reputation as she ‘explained’ a difficult situation to Mr Fox, who was the only partner she could find at the office when she got there. By the time she rushed out with her coat and bag, the switchboard flipped through to the youngest spotty youth in the accounts department, Mr Fox was wishing her friend a speedy recovery, convinced the Hon. Christine Wilson-Smythe was almost catatonic with grief, and Annie was the only person in the world she trusted to be by her side.
As she bounded into the Liveried Lizard pub, Annie was treated to the final stanza of a particularly bawdy version of ‘Bless ‘Em All’, where the word ‘Bless’ had been replaced by an Anglo-Saxon alternative. She noted the song had Christine’s mother looking apoplectic, with Christine herself running around trying to stop the Green Serge Army from starting up yet another ditty incorporating as many swear words as possible, while generally sticking to a rhyme or two along the way.
‘Please make them stop, Annie,’ Christine pleaded before Annie’d even had a chance to catch her breath. Annie wondered why Christine thought she’d have a better chance of success than the granddaughter of their much lamented colleague, but she promised to try.
Immediately realizing any success would only come about as a result of having Lofty on her side, Annie located his wheelchair, brought him a replacement glass of port from the bar, and knelt at his side shouting above the melee, ‘Maybe you blokes could sing a few songs that don’t have any swear words in them? Tiny’s daughter in’t too happy about the language.’
Lofty heard her well enough, Annie could tell that from the flicker of a wicked smile that danced across his face, but he put his hand to his ear and played deaf. ‘What was that, miss?’ he squeaked, all innocence.
‘You ’eard me,’ retorted Annie in a deeper, darker voice, and she gave the old soldier a warning wink as she passed him the fresh drink. ‘Tell your mates to clean up the songs, pronto, or there’s no more where this came from.’ She nodded at the glass. Lofty very sensibly realized she wasn’t joking.
‘Boys! Let’s keep it a bit more proper. Ladies present!’ he shouted, and the clamor of smut calmed to a gentle humming of ‘Tipperary’ from a distant corner.
‘Ta, doll,’ said Annie. She patted Lofty on the arm as she pushed herself upright.
‘You’re a very persuasive young lady. Where are you from, then?’ smiled Lofty, his dentures glistening with pink stains.
‘Just up the road. East End, me. Why?’
‘No, I don’t mean that. Where are you from?’
Annie knew exactly what the elderly man meant; she was black, so where did she really come from. But she wasn’t going to play along.
‘Mile End, like I said,’ she replied loudly. ‘Proper Cockney me. Don’t you recognize the accent?’
‘So where are your parents from then?’ pressed the tiny man.
‘I see,’ said Annie slowly. ‘You mean why have I got this dark, silky skin, and such a lovely complexion? St Lucia. They came over back in the Fifties. You know, when all you lot were all so welcoming.’
‘Oh, your people are some of them. I see. English now, are you?’
Annie did her best to not let her annoyance show. ‘Yeah, having been born here, that would be right. Nice, that glass of port, is it?’
Lofty raised his drink to her. ‘I likes a drop of port now and again, and it’s only really beers we run to at the barracks.’
‘Well, let’s make sure we don’t bite the hand that feeds us, eh, Lofty?’ replied Annie, nodding toward Christine’s mother as she spoke. ‘She’s the one what’s buyin’ it for you, and I’m the one what can keep bringing it to you from the bar.’
‘Right-o,’ chuckled Lofty as he raised his glass toward Annie once more and shouted as loud as his tired lungs could manage, ‘To Tiny!’
The toast was taken up around the room, and led to the subsidence of all singing; the relative calm of a low rumbling of old stories about Tiny and his escapades took over. Annie saw Christine was patting her mother’s hand as she glanced over and mouthed, ‘Thank you.’ Annie pushed her way to the bar where she grabbed two glasses of Cabernet Sauvignon, reasoning it would save her a trip. She weaved her way through the throng of old soldiers to a table where Carol was fielding tales of basic training nightmares being batted between two octogenarians – one sat either side of her, and both were obviously hard of hearing.
Dragging a chair to be able to sit opposite the threesome, Annie spoke across the table to Carol, ‘Mr Fox thinks Christine is dissolving with grief and desperately needs me to be with her; I hope he don’t stop in for a quick one on the way home.’
‘Hardly likely,’ replied Carol, ‘he wouldn’t be seen dead in here I shouldn’t think.’ Annie laughed as Carol’s facial expression told her she’d just realized that her remark was hardly appropriate, given the reason for the gathering. Annie giggled. ‘Mind you,’ added Carol, ‘he doesn’t know what he’s missing today, right?’
‘You’re not wrong, doll!’ replied Annie grinning, raising her glass toward her old friend. ‘To Tiny,’ offered Annie. The toast was, once again, echoed around the pub.
The two men at Carol’s table raised their glasses toward Annie. One of them – a particularly desiccated example of manhood – licked his lips after taking a sip from his glass, then motioned at Annie, beckoning her to draw near.
‘You a friend of the granddaughter?’ he asked, loudly. Annie nodded. ‘Well, you’d better tell her to get to the barracks for Tiny’s stuff PDQ; a couple of the older ones have popped off in the last month or so, and word is some of their s
tuff’s gone missing from their beddings.’
Annie was confused. ‘You mean if Christine and her mum don’t get to the barracks quick, some of Tiny’s things might walk off of their own accord?’
‘All I’m saying,’ replied the man, ‘is Stumpy Webber went a while back and his son swears he always kept a pile of money in his room, but when he come to get it, there weren’t none. Then Milky Evans went too, and his grandson says as how there’s a silver plate he won for playing cricket gorn missing. Now there’s Tiny; not that he had much, mind you, but they’d best get there quick. Haven’t seen hide nor hair of them at our place yet, we haven’t.’
‘I think his daughter’s been a bit too upset, and too busy getting things sorted out for today, to come to the barracks yet,’ offered Carol.
‘Shouldn’t be too busy to get his stuff,’ replied the other old serviceman, who looked to Annie as though he might once have been a redhead, if his freckles were anything to go by. ‘But don’t listen to this one about stuff going missing. It’s all in his head.’
‘Is not,’ said the wrinkly man. ‘And someone should be tryin’ to find out why all the old ’uns are droppin’ from their perches so soon after each other,’ he added.
‘What do you mean?’ asked Annie, immediately curious.
‘Shut up, Willy,’ snapped his colleague.
‘No, I bleedin’ well won’t,’ retorted Willy, ‘someone needs to say it!’
‘And it would be bleedin’ typical it would be you, you stupid old arse,’ replied his so-called friend.
Annie stifled a chuckle.
Willy pushed himself to his feet, leaning heavily on the table with one hand, his beer sloshing about in its glass in the other; he swayed when he stood. He slammed his beer glass onto the table as he leaned forward and shouted at his fellow Battersea Barracker, ‘Old arse? Who are you calling an old arse? You’re older than me; I’m only eighty-two, you’re nearly ninety. And anyway, everyone knows that all the really old ones are dropping like flies. But none of us says nothing. Stumpy. Milky. Before them? Fred. And now Tiny.’ As Willy swayed and shouted, a hush fell over the pub.